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About Bill
Bill Woodruff is our chairman and overseas Investment Banking and Asset Management.
Mr. Woodruff’s career has encompassed sell-side research, sales, trading, investment banking, and, most recently, buy-side equity research & portfolio management. A well respected Wall Street veteran, he has worked on several billion dollars in equity and M&A transactions. In addition, he has also served on the Board of Directors for several technology companies.
Mr. Woodruff received a B.B.A.degree in Finance & Economics from Texas Christian University. He began his career in institutional sales and equity research for Lehman Brothers and later moved to convertible arbitrage at Solomon Brothers, where he reported to Michael Bloomberg and led the Dallas office from #10 ranking among Solomon’s offices to #2 (behind Boston).
Subsequently, he founded his own boutique broker-dealer (William K Woodruff & Co, Inc.) where the firm developed a reputation as a powerful source of ideas.
William K Woodruff & Co, Inc provided seed capital and was a seed investor for Ciena Corporation, which led to co-managing CIEN’s IPO with Goldman Sachs. William K Woodruff & Co was also an early investor in Digital Switch Corporation (earning the firm a cover story for Equity Magazine), which was later purchased by Acatel.